A hiker who was stranded in the
Canadian wilderness for nearly three months after a bear destroyed his
supplies was forced to eat his beloved dog.

Marco
Lavoie escaped with his life when his German Shepherd chased away the
wild animal that attacked their camp - destroying their canoe and food
supplies - just days into a planned three-month climbing trip.

But
three days later, in a real-life display of survival-of-the-fittest,
the 44-year-old killed his heroic Alsatian with a rock and ate it in a
desperate bid to survive.

With
no way to call for help, the stranded explorer then spent a further
three months alone and starving before a search party came to the
rescue.

Desperate measures: Experienced hiker Lavoie is said to have eaten his pet dog to survive

Incredibly, survival experts have praised Mr Lavoie's actions as a good use of 'reason', which may have saved his life.

By the time Mr Lavoie was airlifted out
of the Nottaway River wilderness, about 800km from Montreal, he had lost
half his body weight, was suffering from hypothermia and was unable to
speak.

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However, Andre Francois Bourbeau, claims it is unlikely he would have been alive at all without sacrificing his dearest companion.

'He
survived because he made ‹good decisions. Eating his dog was one of
them,' Mr Bourbeau said. 'You have to be desperate, but there's no shame
in [eating the dog]. He had to use reason.'

Another
expert, Caleb Musgrave, a survival instructor, said the act was a
natural instinct of the human body provoked by extreme hunger: 'When you start to go hungry, you get
mood swings, your mind breaks, and you cramp up all over your body.
Eventually, your body will start cannibalizing itself.'

Found: Matagami lake, where Marco Lavoie was discovered after his solo trip turned into a disaster

He added: 'Up there, in the Canadian shield,
there's little plant life to live off, so he would have been slowly,
painfully dying when they found him.

'It's an amazing feat that he was
able to keep himself alive this long with almost no equipment.'

Mr
Lavoie's family only reported him missing in the past few weeks after
he failed to return from the planned solo trip to Lake Matagame.

Eight
days into the search, Mr Lavoie was spotted by a helicopter crew, but
they were unable to land close by so rescue workers had to carry the
malnourished hiker about a mile to the aircraft.

Raided: A black bear in a national forest destroyed food supplies and a canoe before the dog chased it away

Several survival experts agreed that
conditions in the Nottaway River wilderness were tough and, with
temperatures dropping below freezing, the ordeal would have been enough
to mentally break even the most experienced hiker.

Andre Diamond, a Waswanipi Cree who lives on an island at the mouth of the river, told the Toronto Sun he had warned Mr Lavoie to stay away.

'He
said it didn't scare him, but it's not a river to travel alone,' Mr
Diamond said. 'Other adventurers have gone there over 20, 30 years and
never came back.'